A High-Tech Strawberry—and Our Other Favorite Fancy Fruit
Most founders can’t squeeze a dime out of investors these days. Yet a robot-powered strawberry farm raised $134 million last week, so we filled a basket with otherworldly grapefruit, the Bugatti of grapes—and, yes, that well-capitalized berry.
By Larissa Zimberoff
As a GPU is to Nvidia, a strawberry is to Oishii: expensive, deeply coveted—and backed by enormous amounts of capital and technology.
New Jersey–based Oishii (pronounced oy-shi) operates two vertical farms that rely on robotic sensors, which collect over a million data points daily to ensure the berries grow in an environment that’s drenched with LED light. The setting mimics the pastoral conditions of co-founder Hiroki Koga’s native Japan. Koga started Oishii in 2018 after noticing that strawberries in America had a wide gap between what he hoped they’d taste like—and their actual taste.
Koga has plenty of venture capital bounty to spend on his berries, which sell for about $12 for a half dozen or so (if they’re not sold out at stores like Whole Foods—as they usually are). Last week, he announced a fresh $134 million in funding after raising $50 million from investors like Sony’s Innovation Fund in 2021; Oishii plans to use the funding on new robotics, a transition to solar power and expanded distribution. He’s not the only one growing impressively fancy fruit these days. Here are some of our favorites.